1. Field of the Invention
A connector arrangement connects the contacts of a stack of terminal blocks, including first conductive bridge means extending longitudinally above a given terminal block for selectively connecting together the contacts thereof, and second laterally-extending conductive bridge means connecting together corresponding contacts of various selected terminal blocks of the stack. Resilient fingers on the longitudinal and lateral conductive bridges respectively engage openings contained in offset tiered first and second contact areas contained in branch conductors that are connected with bus bars contained in the terminal blocks, respectively.
2. Description of Related Art
It is known in the prior art to provide means for connecting together the electrical contacts of a plurality of terminal blocks mounted in stacked parallel arrangement on a mounting rail. Each of the terminal blocks contains a plurality of bus bars that connect various electrical contacts of the terminal block. First external connector means connect together selected bus bars of a given terminal block, and second external connector means connect together a bus bar of one terminal block with corresponding bus bars of other selected terminal blocks of the stack.
By attaching or, respectively, inserting the connectors into the plug-in positions provided for them it will be possible to connect bus bars of two or more terminal blocks in the lateral direction in conductive fashion in order to realize a lateral distribution of one or several potentials in the transverse direction.
In this context it has been known to provide the lateral connectors with plugs separable at predetermined breaking points so that it will be possible to connect only certain of the terminal blocks with each other in conductive fashion. This generic arrangement per se has stood the test of time.
However, it is desirable to make possible the distribution of electrical power within the terminal block arrangement more varied in a simple manner to provide additional possibilities for a distribution of power as compared to the state of the art.
According to it, the generic arrangement is provided with additional plug-in positions and/or a design of the plug-in positions to accommodate at least one additional connector or several additional pluggable connectors for a distribution of one or several potentials within the respective terminal blocks.
The invention makes it possible to distribute potentials not only in the lateral direction between terminal blocks, but also to connect bus bars within each terminal block for distribution in a simple manner, quasi arbitrarily, so that the possibilities for a distribution of potential within the terminal block arrangement are clearly increased or, respectively, expanded. Within the framework of the present invention, lateral distribution is to be understood, on the one hand, as the lateral distribution in transverse direction across several terminal blocks, and, on the other hand, as a distribution within a given terminal block, thus in particular also a “vertical distribution” in the terminal block. Preferably, at least one of the connectors will therefore be designed as a lateral connector and at least one connector as a vertical connector.